HI i have a registreted alipay account that i use regulary in china mainland with no problem. Problem is that now i am back home (in france) for holidays , where i got my phone stolen. I bought a new phone and downloaded the alipay app, but now i can’t access my account as they ask to send me a text message to my chinese number, for the id verification, which of course doesn’t work in france, so i can’t connect to my account therefore can’t access my money.
Is there any otherway i can do the id verification?! email or add a french number…?
Thanks for your answer.

Thanks for a very useful post. It helps pin down the issue for me: Cannot verify identity without a mainland-located bank. Not even with an account at the Malaysian branch of Bank of China. Too bad. Real bummer.

I guess even the recently-launched AliPay Malaysia will not work as a channel to verify identity at AliPay China?

Hi Eric, I use to live in China for work a few years ago (currently based in UK) I still have my ICBC account there, when I registered the card with alipay it asks for a mobile number (I assume this needs to be a local Chinese mobile.) Problem is that I stopped using my china mobile number which I registered my ICBC account with. Does that mean I need to go back to china, get a new mobile number then go to the bank branch in china to provide them with a update a new mobile number?

Another option for me is to use a Hong Kong bank account, are HK residents able to order from 1688.com using their HK bank accounts via alipay HK? Sorry about the long text above, thanks in advance for your help, much appreciated.

My company would like to have a company’s verified Taobao account. We currently do not have any bank accounts in China. And the limited amount of money in our account or how much money are we allowed to spend a month or a year. Thanks a lot

Hello, I am a foreigner from Singapore and have just created Alipay account (not the international one). my account is created but i can never log in again once i signed out. Or even when i was logged in, they still prompt me to sign in again and doesnt allow me to sign in. Did i misread anything?

hello
i am a foreigner in china and i am unable to enter my details of bank into alipay. please help to resolve it.
i am facing issue of ID number and i did not see any option regarding passport number, i visited my bank but they said your details are correct….

I’ from Malaysia and it will launch AliPay acceptance very soon. I’ve been trying to find more information but not able to find much on technical side.

I suppose to use aliPay we need to do the following :

1. Download app and register account with mobile number
2. Add credit card and then top up our alipay account
3. Start using it

Is the above right?
What about being a merchant. Do you have any idea how to start for me to accept alipay customers?.
If im not mistaken i need to sign up cross border account but not sure with who and also get the terminal from the local bank as part of the settlement bank. Is this right?.
I can’t find any technical or clear instruction on how this would work.

I’ve applied for a refund and it’s been accepted but I seem to have problems with account verification. I paid using a debit mastercard, will it get refunded to my account regardless or do I have to resolve the issue first?

How do u ask for the refund ,my money has been stucked inside as they need another bank for verification which I don’t have ,can u kindly advise me how do u ask for refund to your credit card thanks very much

HEY PLEASE ANSWER TO THIS. I am regular Taobao user. Bought something the seller didnt ship for some time and I opened a refund and he refunded me. I am used to doing refund etc and it never showed any error and just went to my debit card in a week or two. But this time it says it can’t verify my alipay and won’t be “used directly”. I tried verifying but it wont allow my debit card that I regularly use on taobao. Will it still go back to my debit card in a few days or am I just screwed?

Hi Eric, If im going to China Mainland for a short 1 week holiday, am i able to open a mainland bank account and then use it to verify on Alipay? Do they require permanent residency proof? I saw that one of the documents required is 入境证

I create alipay account via the alipay apps in iOS and I only able to add my local credit card. I understand that I can’t get my account verified unless I open an account in China. As I had added my credit card successfully, will I able to buy any item in 1688 or taobao with it. Since it is credit card, so 3% charges will be added to the payment right ?

I haven’t try it but if I want to pay in 1688 can I just pay using the alipay apps but getting my supplier alipay account number ?? Or I go thru 1688 payment method?? normally I buy stuff in 1688 thru agent so I have no idea about it and I not sure where to ask

Hi,
1.yes,you can,and 3% charges will be added to the payment.
2.No,you can not send payment directly to your supplier alipay account like paypal unless you have a verified alipay account,you have to go thru 1688 payment method.

Hi,
can i register to Alipay with a commercial bank account ?
should i enter the bank account name as the Company name, or as the name in my foreign passport ?
after registered, can i pay on TAOBAO with my local visa credit card ?
thanks for the help.

I opened and registered a Alipay account while living in China. I moved back to my home country(USA) and now I want to use that Alipay account with the newly created account in Taobao. My question is , I’m trying to link my current alipay account to the new created Taobao account. I’m having difficulty because every time I opened the Alipay account, the settings screen is in Chinese. And I know more about Chickens than the Chinese language. I need help in English figuring out the steps to achieve my objective. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated . Thanks, Gabriel

Hi,
Eric i am from malaysia and i wanna buy things from 1688.but payment must use alipay and i did register and i find some agent to recharge for me as well.but its failure due to real name verification.can i open a account in bank of china in malaysia branch and do the verification the account?.or else other ways to solve this matter?.

Just sharing a recent horrifying shopping experience with taobao. Feel free to share if you’ve any comments.

I tried to make a purchase on taobao, intending to purchase it directly and have it shipped over to Singapore (like I usually do for years). With the removal of enets, I was made to pay with credit card. I was able to pay for my items but when was unable to pay for my shipping (regardless of whether or not I use the same credit card).

Contacted taobao/alipay and they said I had to submit images of my passport, credit card and credit card statement to verify my account which I felt was risky. i spoke with over 10 taobao/alipay stuff via all platforms but they insisted there’s no other way and they couldn’t answer why the system allocated the first payment to be through despite them determining that my account needed to be verified. Thankfully a friend whose relative resides in China managed to help 代付 (Singaporean friends trying using their credit cards to help but to no avail too). Otherwise all the items will be stuck in the China warehouse forever.

But anyway my other friends who did not verify their accounts managed to pay using their credit card with zero issues so I have no idea why I am the only one facing this. Also, this issue meant I will not be able to purchase items directly from taobao anymore, which is upsetting since I’ve always enjoyed purchasing items from the platform.

I’ve been buying from taobao to singapore for several years and never had an issue with alipay despite not being verified because I usually use enets. Anyway I took a pretty long break from buying on TB (since april) and recently have been planning on making an order.

I logged into my alipay account and noticed I had some money in my account balance (which comes from when sellers refund me) and this message “根据监管部门的要求，需要您进一步完善身份验证信息才能使用余额进行付款.” It seems like since 1st July they now need accounts to be verified if not some functions will be frozen or something.

I did some googling but no one seemed to bothered by it. Anyway when I went to check out my order, I usually use whatever funds in my account balance I have and then use enets to cover the rest. But I wasn’t able to as it said I needed to verify my account. I could still pay via enets though.

The amount I have in my account balance now isn’t very much but does that means that whatever money sellers refund me from now on is frozen as I can’t use it or transfer it out?

Hello Eric,
I live in Viet Nam and I find a branch of ICBC here. Is it ok to register an account at ICBC Vietnam and verify alipay? Since alipay changed its policy, my alipay account has been locked, i miss taobao

This is pretty much impossible unless you reside or are visiting China and have a Chinese passport. 🙁
Makes receiving refunds after-the-sale very difficult. I will never get my money back from the warehouse’s mistake.

If you paid by a credit card, you can always Charge Back the payment by contacting your bank-issuer, if Alipay refuses to release your funds back to Visa account. They are obligated by contract with Visa and MasterCard International to return any refunds back to account holders. This means, you may not be able to pay for new purchases by using your previous refund on Alipay, but you arel entitled to get your money back without producing any passports etc, because the money will be refunded to the same account they were charged from, so it doesn’t matter whether it belongs to you or not.

If you paid by a debit card or through international payment system like Web Money etc, contact their CS for further instructions.

why do they let me create an Alipay account as a foreigner, but won’t let me use it as a foreigner ? I cannot verify the account as I am a US citizen and do not have a Chinese Bank Account from inside china. I find this bizarre.

When creating a bank account in China, do they require me to have a China handphone number in order to use their banking facilities? I.e. sending one-time pin etc. If yes how do we go about it since we are foreigners and do not have a long term China number.